Transcriptome Profiling of the Whitefly Bemisia tabaci MED in Response to Single Infection of Tomato yellow leaf curl virus, Tomato chlorosis virus, and Their Co-infection

Abstract

Tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) and Tomato chlorosis virus (ToCV) are two of the most devastating cultivated tomato viruses, causing significant crop losses worldwide. As the vector of both TYLCV and ToCV, the whitefly Bemisia tabaci Mediterranean (MED) is mainly responsible for the rapid spread and mixed infection of TYLCV and ToCV in China. However, little is known concerning B. tabaci MED's molecular response to TYLCV and ToCV infection or their co-infection. We determined the transcriptional responses of the whitefly MED to TYLCV infection, ToCV infection, and TYLCV&ToCV co-infection using Illumina sequencing. In all, 78, 221, and 60 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in TYLCV-infected, ToCV-infected, and TYLCV&ToCV co-infected whiteflies, respectively, compared with non-viruliferous whiteflies. Differentially regulated genes were sorted according to their roles in detoxification, stress response, immune response, transport, primary metabolism, cell function, and total fitness in whiteflies after feeding on virus-infected tomato plants. Alterations in the transcription profiles of genes involved in transport and energy metabolism occurred between TYLCV&ToCV co-infection and single infection with TYLCV or ToCV; this may be associated with the adaptation of the insect vector upon co-infection of the two viruses. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses demonstrated that the single infection with TYLCV or ToCV and the TYLCV&ToCV co-infection could perturb metabolic processes and metabolic pathways. Taken together, our results provide basis for further exploration of the molecular mechanisms of the response to TYLCV, ToCV single infection, and TYLCV&ToCV co-infection in B. tabaci MED, which will add to our knowledge of the interactions between plant viruses and insect vectors.

Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus Infection Alters Bemisia tabaci MED (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) Vulnerability to Flupyradifurone

“…We next measured several demographic parameters of control and viruliferous MED exposed to either insecticide-or water-treated plants. Although TYLCV infection has little direct effect on MED fitness (Pan et al 2013a, Su et al 2015, recent work found a net downregulation of detoxification enzymes in TYLCV-infected MED (Ding et al 2019); we hypothesized that viruliferous MED would be more sensitive to Sivanto than uninfected individuals.…”

“…A recent review (Pietri and Liang 2018) suggested these variable results may partially reflect symbiont-specific effects on both host detoxification enzymes and their immune/stress response. A transcriptomic analysis of gene regulation in TYLCV-infected MED found that while TYLCV generally downregulated detoxification enzymes, genes involved in both stress and immune responses were upregulated (Ding et al 2019). It seems likely that some of these upregulated genes alter MED susceptibility to flupyradifurone.…”

Integrated Analysis of microRNA and mRNA Transcriptome Reveals the Molecular Mechanism of Solanum lycopersicum Response to Bemisia tabaci and Tomato chlorosis virus

“…With the development of high-throughput sequencing technology, it has become widely used in the studies of plant-virus interactions ( Ding et al, 2019 ; Şahin-Çevik et al, 2019 ; Fortes et al, 2020 ), and there have been a lot of plant-virus interactions in tomato plants, but most of them are concentrated on tomato yellow leaf curl virus (TYLCV) and related DNA viruses ( Chen et al, 2013 ; Lucioli et al, 2016 ; Sahu et al, 2020 ). Although much research has focused on the identification of related resistance genes, it has always been a challenge to determine resistance genes so that they can be introduced into tomato plants.…”

“…The whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), consisting of at least 39 cryptic species (Alemandri et al, 2015), as an important vector of ToCV, causes severe damage to crops worldwide (Xia et al, 2019). The previous study showed that B. tabaci can acquire ToCV in 24 h after feeding of ToCV-infected tomato plants (Ding et al, 2019). Among all the known biotypes of whitefly, MED and MEAM1 are the most invasive, and they are widely distributed around the world, causing serious damage (De Barro et al, 2011).…”

Transcriptome analysis and comparison reveal divergence between the Mediterranean and the greenhouse whiteflies

“…Pairwise comparisons between MED, MEAM1, and Asia II 3 (a native species of whitefly) have been conducted at the sequence and gene expression levels, indicating that sequence divergence of gene clusters include cytochrome P450, glutathione metabolism, and oxidative phosphorylation, and highly expression divergent genes are mainly related to basic metabolism and detoxification [ 24 – 26 ]. So far, several RNA-seq studies have been analyzed on whiteflies in relation to host adaption [ 27 – 30 ], insecticides resistance [ 31 – 33 ] and virus transmission [ 34 – 38 ]. Some detoxification genes such as cytochrome 450 monooxygenases (P450s), glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) and UDP-glucosyltransferases (UGTs) were found related with both host adaption and insecticide resistance [ 30 – 32 , 39 , 40 ].…”